Stolen

by Allison Brennan

  “Deanna and I have been working on a possible mortgage fraud scheme involving Nash’s employer, Colton Thayer. It was on the back burner for a while because we didn’t have anything tangible, but when Rogan came into town and Deanna found out he was working with Thayer she—we—began to look back into the case.”

  Torres frowned but didn’t say anything. He was trying to protect his squad from scrutiny from national headquarters, but Noah suspected that either this was the first he’d heard about the Thayer case or Torres hadn’t thought it was an active investigation.

  Gannon continued, “Deanna had learned that Nash and Rogan had met earlier in the day, and she planned to question Nash about it.” He glanced at Torres, then continued, “She’s my partner, she’s the senior agent, I knew she was a bit obsessed with Rogan, but she has great instincts and I believed her when she said Rogan was here to run a scam with Thayer and his group. If we could catch them in the act, they wouldn’t be able to get out of it. She felt Nash was the weakest link.”

  “How long were you outside Nash’s apartment?”

  “I met Deanna there right before we went inside.”

  “You didn’t arrive together?”

  He hesitated. “No, but she got there at about the same time.”

  “Armstrong,” Torres said, “you’re treading on dangerous ground.”

  “Did you see Rogan enter the apartment?”

  “No,” Gannon said. “We met on the street and went upstairs. We saw the door was ajar. We proceeded cautiously. It’s all in the report.”

  “Everything except why you were at Nash’s apartment.”

  “He told you,” Torres said. “Armstrong, I understand your position and that you work for the assistant director. I can give you latitude, but remember that this is my division. I’m not going to allow veiled accusations. I will investigate this matter fully, and I assure you that if there was any impropriety on the part of Agent Brighton it will be taken up through proper channels, including the Office of Professional Responsibility.”

  “I appreciate your diligence,” Noah said. But the bureaucracy worked slowly, especially if an agent was going to be up for reprimand or termination.

  “Sean Rogan needs to come in and give his statement,” Torres said. “As a courtesy to AD Stockton, I canceled the APB, but I still need a statement and explanation.”

  “Understood,” Noah said. “May I look at the files you have on Thayer and Rogan?”

  “Gannon, please give Agent Armstrong what he needs.”

  * * *

  Going home was a risk even with Patrick out of town, but Sean knew how to avoid surveillance. He drove slowly by his place, and there was no one on the street at three on Wednesday morning. Still, he parked the borrowed car around the corner and walked around through the back, climbing through a loose board in his neighbor’s fence. He slipped in through the sunroom, typed in the alarm code, then reset it for exterior surveillance. He wanted advance warning if anyone crossed his property line.

  He was giving himself two hours to break Hunter’s codes. Sean needed to be back in the air before daybreak, and he planned to land at a small private airstrip owned by an old friend of his who was far off the grid. If Noah couldn’t stop Deanna Brighton from tracking Sean, he didn’t want to use an airport.

  He sat behind his desk and booted up his computer. While he waited, he stared at the picture of him and Lucy, taken when they were in Massachusetts the week before she reported to Quantico. He’d used his phone and loved the photo so much he had it printed.

  Her smile was genuine, her long black hair pulled into a curly ponytail, the wind whipping a few strands around her face. He had one arm around her, holding her close to him, the other holding the phone faced toward them. The spontaneous pose captured Lucy’s true personality—her beauty, the sparkle in her dark eyes, her genuine smile, devoid of her natural worries and fears. She’d felt safe and loved, and it showed in the photo.

  “Princess,” he mumbled, caressing the picture.

  His computer beeped, asking for his password. “Time to get to work,” he mumbled.

  Hunter was smart, but Sean had known him for nearly twelve years and he had a methodical way of organizing his cyberlife. To the untrained eye, it would seem both haphazard and highly secure, but Sean cracked Hunter’s phone in short order, using a program he’d written. Now the key was to collect the data from Hunter’s computer through the external cloud network.

  Sean scanned the software on Hunter’s computer, all of which he had renamed either to be cute or for an added layer of security. But Sean looked at the back end and realized that not only could he download Hunter’s last twenty-four hours of work, he could also physically locate Hunter’s computer. Under a game icon named “Carmen”—from the game Where in the World Is Carmen Sandiego? Sean was certain—was coding to track Hunter’s computer.

  Heart racing, Sean downloaded the data and mapped it. He tracked the computer from Hunter’s apartment to … nowhere. Sean had a route, but someone had disabled or somehow masked the computer. There was no live feed, though Sean had the location of the last ping: an industrial neighborhood in Brooklyn.

  Sean wanted to go there himself, but it would take him a minimum of three hours. Time was against him.

  He sent all the data he’d collected to Noah before calling his handler.

  Noah answered on the first ring. “You promised to keep in contact and this is the first I hear from you? Four thirty in the fucking morning?”

  Sean didn’t give him any lip because Noah rarely swore, showing that he was both impatient and frustrated. “I cracked Hunter’s phone and traced his computer to Brooklyn. It’s off now, completely shut down. I suspect they took out the battery or hard drive, or destroyed it. But Hunter had a trace on it, and I sent you a map of the route it took from Hunter’s apartment to where it stopped functioning.”

  “I see it. What’s this? You have it on the move at seven forty-seven p.m.?”

  “The killer shot Hunter, took the computer, and left.”

  “I need FBI forensics to look at that phone.”

  “I’m still working on following his cybertrail, and I need to figure out how he modified Colton’s security system so he would be alerted to a breach.”

  “This clears you, but I need my people to verify the data. You didn’t leave SoHo until seven-fifty-five.”

  “If someone wanted to make a case against me, they could say I falsified the data because the phone was in my possession. I’ll give it up when I know what Hunter found that got him killed.”

  Noah didn’t say anything. Sean jumped ahead. “I’m not in New York.”

  “I know. Lucy called me. What the hell were you thinking, going to Quantico? There was an APB on you—”

  “So you took care of it?”

  “Yes and no.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “It means you’re not wanted by every law enforcement agency out there, but you need to come in and give a statement. As soon as possible. Deanna Brighton has pled her case. I proved she lied about you firing at her, but she’s saying that her partner wasn’t able to hear all the shots because you used a silencer.”

  “I didn’t fire my gun at all,” Sean said through clenched teeth.

  “I believe you, but you need to make a statement nonetheless.”

  “After tomorrow night.”

  Noah sighed. “Get some sleep. Meet me at FBI headquarters at noon.”

  “No.”

  Noah said, “This isn’t up for debate.”

  “I’m not going to blow this cover. I’m not going to let Jonathan Paxton get away with whatever he’s planning. If we don’t stop him now, we’ll never stop him. What if he had Hunter killed? What if Hunter found out something about the FBI mole?”

  “What if Colton Thayer killed his friend?”

  “Colton isn’t a killer.”

  “Sean, listen to me—”

  “I’ll write up a statement an
d e-mail it to you.”

  “It doesn’t work like that.”

  “The last time I went to FBI headquarters voluntarily to give a statement, I was arrested. I spent three days in jail and was expelled from school. Everything they promised me they reneged on. I’m not letting them do that this time. Deanna Brighton tried to fabricate evidence; who’s to say she won’t try it again? And there is that little matter of the statute of limitations—I’m not going anywhere near anyone who can put me in prison.”

  “You need to trust me,” Noah said.

  “I do.” Sean wasn’t lying. “But I’m not coming in. You’ll get your report, it will satisfy everyone except Brighton, and I’ll let you know when I’m back in New York.”

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  Noah had had little sleep, fueled by coffee and protein bars, when he met Suzanne and Detective Hayden Tucker at NYPD’s midtown precinct.

  He had grown increasingly frustrated through the night. While Gannon tried to be helpful, it was clear to Noah that Brighton had manipulated the younger agent into going along with her thin investigation of Colton Thayer on mortgage fraud. In addition, they could find no notes on Sean at all, making Noah think Brighton had cleared out her desk.

  Noah briefed Tucker and Suzanne about the laptop and how Sean had tracked its location.

  “Boarded-up warehouse in Brooklyn?” Tucker said. “Makes me itchy, not knowing what we’re facing. I’ll call in some uniforms to help secure the facility.”

  Tucker admitted he was intrigued by this case. “So your guy is a criminal informant? From what Brighton said last night, Rogan is bad news.”

  “Rogan isn’t a CI,” Noah said. “He’s a private investigator.” He hesitated. “This is need-to-know, Tucker. Our operation is ongoing.”

  “Understood.”

  Noah gave the official version that he and Stockton had worked out. They’d both agreed that if they needed to reveal any information, they wouldn’t mention anything about a U.S. senator under investigation. “Rogan knew the victim and a group of hackers when he was in college ten years ago. When it came to our attention that his old friends were up to something, he agreed to go undercover and help determine if their plans were a threat to national security. Since the timeline was so tight, we couldn’t develop an inside man.”

  “Your colleague was emphatic.”

  “She has a history with Rogan.”

  Tucker glanced over at him. “They were involved?”

  “She arrested him for hacking twelve years ago when he was a student at Stanford. The charges were dropped.” More or less. “I need to fill in my boss.” He sent Rick a message, and was a little surprised when Suzanne filled Tucker in on the details of Sean and Brighton’s history.

  Tucker said, “So he caught a pedophile but embarrassed the Feds and Brighton in the process.” He grinned. “Sounds like I’d like him.”

  “He has his moments,” Noah said and hit send on his message to Rick.

  Thirty minutes later, Suzanne, Noah, Tucker, and six uniformed officers were outside the boarded-up warehouse that was the last known location of Hunter Nash’s laptop.

  Though dawn was breaking, the narrow streets were dark and poorly lit. Suzanne pointed out security cameras on the corners of the building. “Those aren’t cheap. There could be more.”

  “They look new,” Tucker said.

  “If there was ever a time to have Sean here, now is it,” Noah muttered. There was no doubt that Sean would be able to disable the cameras remotely. He had an uncanny knack with all things electronic.

  “They’ll know we’re coming,” Suzanne said.

  “Then let’s not keep them waiting.”

  “Warrant?” Tucker said.

  “I have probable cause,” Noah said. It was thin, but he would stand by it. “Besides, the building owner is unreachable and the business is closed.”

  “Just cover my ass with my boss if this goes south with the D.A.”

  “You got it.”

  Tucker instructed his men to cover the two exits and then took two officers with them to the main entrance.

  Noah glanced at Tucker and he nodded. Noah pounded on the door. “FBI—we’re coming in! Keep your hands where we can see them!”

  They entered the building with flashlights and guns drawn. It was filled with wooden crates and not much else. It hadn’t been used for anything business-related in quite some time.

  They split up, NYPD going to the left, Noah and Suzanne to the right.

  In the back of the warehouse was a row of makeshift offices. In the first one, they found a body.

  The white male had been dead for several hours. He had cuts and bruises on his face and hands, probably from a fight, but he likely died from the bullet in his chest.

  On the desk sat Hunter’s computer, or so Noah suspected. He sniffed. In addition to the blood, there was a burnt smell. Like burning metal.

  He slipped on gloves and inspected the computer. The bottom looked, literally, fried—the case was warped and it looked as if the computer had overheated to the point of self-destruction.

  Noah wondered if it was Nash’s fail-safe, to protect against any unauthorized access, or if the killers had destroyed the computer because of evidence inside.

  While Tucker and his cops cleared the building, Noah looked through the office without disturbing any potential evidence. A printer was in the corner, but there was no computer. Newly installed wiring was evident. The file cabinets were also new, and they were empty, though loose papers littered the cement floor.

  “Someone got out fast,” Noah said.

  Tucker joined them. “We’re clear. How did they know we were coming?”

  “I don’t think they did,” Suzanne said. “This body has been dead at least six hours, could be longer. And he was severely beaten before he was shot.”

  “Which means,” Noah said, “he was killed shortly after the computer was destroyed.”

  “Maybe he screwed up,” Suzanne suggested.

  “Like killed Nash when he was just supposed to take the computer?” Noah frowned. “Maybe.”

  “What are you thinking?”

  “Sean swears that Thayer isn’t a killer, and I’ve studied every crime he’s been accused of in the last fifteen years. He’s never been violent. I don’t see him shooting a longtime friend in the head, then torturing this guy.”

  “Got in with the wrong group,” Tucker said.

  Suzanne had a theory. “Maybe the people he works for were pissed he busted the computer. Maybe they took it because they needed something on it.”

  “That’s likely.” Noah suspected that Senator Paxton had ordered several murders, but Noah didn’t think the senator had killed anyone who wasn’t a known criminal. If Nash had uncovered his plans, would Paxton have ordered a hit?

  It didn’t feel right. But without more evidence, it was a theory Noah had to pursue.

  Noah searched the victim’s body, even though procedure required that he wait until it had been checked by the coroner. He didn’t have time.

  He pulled the man’s wallet. “Timothy Alan Corbett, New York City address. Thirty-four.” He handed the wallet to Detective Tucker. “Is this address nearby?”

  Tucker nodded. “It’s in Queens. If this guy is connected to Nash’s homicide, my people should take a look.”

  “Agreed,” Noah said. “If you find anything at all—”

  Suzanne nodded. “I’ll go with Hayden. Keep Noah in the loop. This isn’t my first rodeo.”

  * * *

  It was after dawn, much later than Sean had planned to leave, when he finally cracked Hunter’s system. He smiled, though his success was bittersweet.

  “I’m going to miss you, pal,” he said to himself. He wished he hadn’t cut ties with Hunter or Colton. Now there was no going back. Colton wouldn’t forgive this betrayal when he found out Sean was working for the feds.

  Sean reviewed the logs and saw that after he’d told Colton that Deanna Brighton
had been following him, Hunter had changed the security system so that anyone who walked past Colton’s house was photographed and the file sent immediately to Hunter’s iCloud server. When Sean cracked the phone code, he had access to the iCloud and pulled down the images to his desktop.

  He disregarded people on the sidewalk unless they stopped. He was particularly interested in anyone who watched or approached the house.

  Only one person showed up who Sean didn’t know. Tuesday, late morning, only a few hours after Sean and Hunter met in Bryant Park.

  Sean didn’t recognize the well-dressed, trim, blond stranger. From where his head matched up to the doorframe, Sean guessed he was about six feet tall. He looked like an accountant or businessman in his mid-to-late thirties.

  Sean couldn’t see who opened the door, but the stranger entered. He left fifty minutes later.

  Sean had to take a risk. He called Colton.

  Colton answered the phone, groggy. “What?”

  “Are you alone?”

  “Carol’s sleeping.”

  “I sent you a picture. Look at it.”

  “Just a sec.”

  Sean heard a door close, a computer being booted up. A moment later, Colton said, “Who’s this?”

  “I don’t know. I cracked Hunter’s security. When he changed the security after Deanna Brighton followed you from the carriage house—”

  “After you think she followed me—”

  “He had pictures of anyone near the house sent to his external server. It’s a fail-safe, in case your system was tampered with.”

  “No one touched my system.”

  Sean wasn’t going to argue with him. “This is the only person who went inside. He was there from eleven thirty yesterday morning until nearly twelve thirty. You don’t know who he is?”

  Colton said, “Hunter was spying on me?”

  Sean squeezed his temples, his headache going from throbbing to pounding. “No,” he told Colton. “After Hunter beefed up your security, I talked to him. Someone tipped Brighton off about you and I working together again. No one knew I was in New York except for you and the group. I didn’t say anything to Hunter that I didn’t already tell you. What do we really know about Evan and Carol?”